In Romania, one in three companies is managed by a woman and 35% of the local SMEs are owned by women, according to BCR’s updated portfolio information.
“Women holding managing positions inspire the underlying principles and values of the corporate culture, such as: kindness, transparency, trust, understanding and objectivity. Many women have distributive attention and perform excellently when it comes to team work. They are not afraid of trying new things are not afraid of making mistakes, as long as they can learn from these mistakes. Women have proved their ability to cope with the challenges they encounter in the business environment, based on their ambition and desire to know things in detail. In many ways, women have redefined management, which has contributed to the values promoted by women in the business environment being acknowledged publicly”, said Ms. Dana Demetrian, Vicepresident of Retail&Private Banking BCR.
Women’s business environment in Romania develops ever more quickly, in circumstances where ever more companies hire representatives of the fair sex as managers and ever more companies are open to working with female entrepreneurs. Actually, according to the information that BCR has, the businesses that women run have evolved better than the other businesses over the past three years, turning out a growth rate of the turnover which is 2% higher than the national average of the other companies.
“Romanian women are emancipated in terms of business, and this is obvious every day, we feel this in our everyday activity and we are more than happy to see this. Their ambition and elegance have pushed the ladies into ever higher and more important positions in the world of business and the management input is to reflected directly in the performance of the businesses and the turnovers of the companies, said Anca Petcu, Director of BCR’s Corporate Network.
Usually ladies do business in the service industry - consulting, beauty salons and shops - and trade industry, such as drugstores, food stores and clothing. According to the same information, Romania’s largest cities – Bucharest, Cluj and Timișoara – bring together 30% of the business that women have set up over the past two years, whereas ladies in these urban areas own 4% more companies than the national average.
Another proof of the women’s financial emancipation in Romania is associated to how they use financial tools and to how they behave when it comes to investment. More specifically, up to the end of the previous year, about 41% of BCR’s credit portfolio was held by women and only 38% of the ladies had turned out NPL’s, compared to 62% of the NPLs held by male debtors.
At the same time, more women plan to put their money in investment instruments than men (50.5% women, 49.5% men) and hold 2.8 bn. lei worth of assets, according to the information that ERSTE Asset Management has. According to the same source of information, women are more conservative than men when it comes to the sort of investment they prefer, in circumstances where 64,000 women have invested in bond funds on the monetary market and low-risk funds, which is 4% more than men.
Banca Comercială Română (BCR), a member of Erste Group, is the most important financial group in Romania, providing universal banking operations (retail, corporate & investment banking, treasury and capital markets), and covering specialty companies working on the leasing market, private pensions and housing banks. BCR is Romania’s No. 1 bank in terms of asset value (over 14,4 €bn.), in terms of client base and in terms of savings and crediting. BCR is also Romania’s most important financial brand, judging by the client trust rate and by the number of persons who consider that BCR is their main banking partner.
BCR uses a network of 22 corporate business centres and 23 mobile offices devoted to corporate clients, and 538 retails units located in most communities inhabited by at least 10,000 citizens to provide a full range of financial products and services. BCR is Romania’s No. 1 bank running on the banking transactions market, since BCR customers have the largest ATM network at their disposal – nearly 2,050 ATMs and 13,500 POS terminals enabling customers to use their cards for shopping purposes, as well as the complete Internet banking, mobile banking, phone-banking and e-commerce services.
Erste Group is one of the main suppliers of financial services in Eastern European Union. About 44,000 bank officers working in 2,800 branches in seven countries (Austria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania, Hungary, Croatia, and Serbia) assist 16.5 mn. customers. Erste Group reported a total asset pool worth €197,0 bn. and a 54.4% cost-to-income ratio at the end of Q3 2014. First-ranking common equity index (Basel 3 implemented partially) has improved to 10.8%.
BCR - External Contact
Alina Dăneasă, e-mail: alina.daneasa@bcr.ro
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